Teaching may be described as an act or experience having a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual, i.e., the student. Education, which includes teaching, is systemic transmission accumulated knowledge, skills and values. Etymologically, the word education contains educarae (Latin) “bring up” which is related to educere “bring out”, “bring forth what is within”, “bring out potential” and ducere “to lead.” The term teaching refers to the actions of a real live instructor designed to impart learning to the student, referred to as “teacher” herein. The term learning refers to learning with a view toward preparing learners with specific knowledge, skills, or abilities that can be applied immediately upon completion, the learners referred to as students, herein, regardless of age or circumstance.
Teachers must first understand a subject sufficiently to convey its essence to students, and must do so using some technique. Traditional teaching techniques involve lecturing on the part of the teacher. New teaching or instructional techniques may include discussion (facilitated by a teacher) and coaching where the student may more actively learn, so in a sense discovering the subject of the course. Broadly, however, the goal of teaching remains the same: to establish a sound knowledge base and skill set on which students may build when exposed to different life experiences.
While teaching to convey a set of material, for example, the alphabet or sets of times tables, may include (and require) repetitive presentation, teaching of skills and behaviours, as distinguished from sets of fact-based knowledge can be more challenging for an educator (teacher and educator may be used interchangeable herein). Techniques for teaching new behaviours necessary to achieve certain goals, however, or to modify certain behaviours to achieve certain (or uncertain) goals; can be quite challenging. The effectiveness of the teaching is dependent upon the quality of the teacher-student interaction, which is particularly dependent on a teacher's ability to gain the student's undivided attention. As teachers know, however, a student's undivided attention can be a transient thing wholly dependent upon the teacher's or the teaching material's ability to both capture and maintain the student's undivided attention.
Various games, game systems and game- or theme-based teaching techniques are known that attempt to improve the effectiveness of teaching, student learning, student behavioural training and student behavioural modification, without limitation.
A number of these known games, game- or theme-based systems and techniques are computer specific. For example, US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2005/0202380 discloses a personal evaluation method and system, information processing unit and program. US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2005/0287505 discloses a system of teaching success and method. US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2004/0150215 discloses a personal goal tracking system and method. U.S. Pat. No. 6,442,527 discloses system and method for personalized and customized time management. U.S. Pat. No. 7,337,120 discloses a method for providing human performance management data and insight and U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,510 discloses an interactive goal achievement system and method.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,510, in more detail, discloses an interactive system and method for assisting people in achieving and learning to achieve self-determined, measurable goals over time by collecting data from a user on the user's progress over time. Random or scheduled positive or negative reinforcement is provided in the computer interactive learning environment, which is provided to a student sitting at a computer console at a laptop or workstation. FIGS. 3A, 3B and 4A-4G of U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,510 show various computer system embodiments in which the system is implemented. While instant feedback via a computer/student interface may provide some motivation for a student implementing new behaviour of modifying existing behaviour, the computer screen and input device tend to be impersonal and do not have the same effectiveness for maintaining a student's attention as does a live session with a teacher, still less a live teacher in cooperation with structured, interactive game elements.
Hence, the computer-centric learning techniques disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,510, like those disclosed in US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2005/0202380, US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2005/0287505, US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2004/0150215, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,442,527, 7,337,120 and 5,954,510, are limited in their effectiveness.
As distinguished from computer-based devices and techniques, various motivational and behavior teaching methods and games are known. The known method or techniques may use physical objects, such as game boards, place savers for moving along the game board, may implement rewards for game progress, etc. That is, they rely on a tactile effect based on a student's physical interaction with a board, and/or other attention-keeping effect of a board and the features maintained thereof.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,345,821 discloses a household chore designation game with an erasable board structure, U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,915 discloses motivational task tracking device, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,616 discloses a board game with a board and marker manipulated through movement paths simulating life experience events, PCT Patent Appln. WO 94/04231 for a board game apparatus with goal setting means, US Patent Appln. Ser. No. 2006/0172268 discloses a behavior shaping system and kits and U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,327 discloses a toilet training system and method that use a game board with a pre-printed path.
In more detail, behaviour shaping system and kits disclosed in US Patent Appln. Pub. No. 2006/0172268 comprises a game board with a triangle or pyramid with levels and means for marking the spaces. Each time a student accomplishes a skill being taught, a caregiver marks a space. This type of operation, however, limits the actual physical involvement and input in the training by the student. While such a game and gameboard might keep the student's attention while in the active teaching process, it may prove ineffective in teaching a student how to modify their own behaviour, that it, it might teach them an ontology but not how to modify their own behaviour for future needs.
In the toilet training system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,327, a pre-printed path on a board utilized in the toilet training method comprises step spaces and reward goal spaces. The disclosure a technique for toilet training using the board whereby a parent works with a student in order that the student select a reward type. The parent then writes (describes) the reward in a reward space on the game board. When the student successfully uses the toilet, the parent again interacts with the student, acknowledges the student's successful use of the toilet, and physically marks one of the step spaces.
This space as marked by the parent (teacher) memorializes the student's progress to at least the parent, and to the student if he/she notices the parent action, which is much more likely if the student being toilet trained is of reading age. And if the parent shows the student that their progress allows them to advance to a place on the board that is a reward space, the student should receive a reward from the parent (teacher), as a form of positive reinforcement. If the student does not successfully use the toilet, the parent (teacher) may bring it to the student's attention, including making a show of erasing a space on the board, as a form of negative reinforcement.
While such apparatus and method may eventually train the student to effectively use a toilet when a biological need arises, it is limited as a behavioural modification technique. For example, the technique does not engage the student enough. The board spaces are traversed as much by the parent as the student, so may be looked upon by the student as a temporary or transient interaction, not necessarily a portion of a modified behaviour. For that matter, the technique does not engage the student in other areas or parts of the student's life. For example, there is no suggestion that the technique engages a teacher at school as well as the parent, so that the student is compelled to recall or physically act while at school as well as home. Nor does the disclosed technique appear to appear to include educating the parent or teacher on the process of imparting the toilet training. That is, the technique merely includes an interaction between parent and student to accomplish the student's movement along the board upon the conditions precedent, but does not go as far as first educating the parent still less educating a teacher at school to enlarge the student's exposure to the behaviour modification.